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[Twilight Imperium] Game 7

Over three thousand years ago, the Lazax ruled the galaxy. But after many millennia of control, the Lazax grew complacent with their position over the other races. The six great races of Sol, Hylar, N'orr, Hacan, Letnev, and Xxcha began to chafe under the rule of the Lazax Empire. And so when a trade dispute over the Quann wormhole resulted in the Sol armada acting against the Letnev, a flame spread like wildfire throughout the galaxy, igniting a civil war between races that had only tenuously been held back by the Lazax rule. In the centuries that followed, the Twilight War eradicated the Lazax race and turned back thousands of years of progress. The great races retreated to their home planets to rebuild, and once the Galactic Council was once again able to meet, it was a shadow of its former strength. And now, thousands of years later, after the long era of the Dark Years, the time is right for a new race to step up and become the rulers of the galaxy, and the guiding hand for all races within its domain.

Twilight Imperium is a boardgame of galactic empire-building on a large scale, often described as a 4X game given physical form. Players build ships, conquer planets, research technology, and engage in trade and diplomacy, all in the pursuit of earning victory points toward claiming the Imperial Throne of Mecatol Rex and rule over the entire galaxy. For this game, we will be using the Shattered Empire expansion with its replacement strategy cards along with the optional rules Custodians, Tactical Retreat, and Racial Techs.

Players may post actions in bold using their race's color. Except for conversations between teammates and those initiated by the host, all inter-player conversation must be done in-thread. If you have need for clarifications, feel free to ask in bold darkorange.

Game Objectives

In order to claim the Imperial Throne of Mecatol Rex, players must accumulate 9 victory points (VP). VP are earned by fulfilling Objective cards: at the start of the game, each player has a hidden Secret Objective that only they may fulfill; over the course of the game, cards will be revealed from the Public Objective line that all players may fulfill. As soon as any player has completed 9 VP worth of Objectives, the game ends immediately, even if another player could have gained more VP later in the round.

The Public Objective line is comprised of 6 Stage I cards and 4 Stage II cards. At the start of the game, cards are randomly selected, revealed in a line (Stage I cards first, followed by Stage II). Among the Stage II cards is "Imperium Rex", which acts as a bit of a game clock: if it is revealed, the game ends immediately and the player with the most VPs wins. In case of a tie, ties are broken in order by number of Objective Cards fulfilled, number of planets controlled, number of reserve Command Counters, and number of allocated Command Counters. If none of these measures break the tie, then the game ends in a draw.

General Game Flow

The game is played over a number of rounds, typically 5-10 in total. Each round is divided into three parts: the Strategy Phase, the Action Phase, and the Status Phase. In the Strategy Phase, players select Strategy Cards: this determines the special action that player may take during the round as well as play order. The bulk of activity takes place in the Action Phase: here players may deploy abilities specified by their choice of Strategy Card, activate systems for unit movement, space combat, invasion of planets, and building of new units, or to play certain action cards. Once everybody has passed their turns in the Action Phase, the Status Phase allows for players to score victory points by claiming objectives and refreshes the board setup for the next round of play.

Strategy Phase

In the Strategy Phase, players select Strategy Cards for the round. Each Strategy Card has a special ability and determines play order in the Action Phase. Starting from the player with the Speaker token and moving clockwise, each player will choose a card; each card may be selected by at most one player.

At the end of the Strategy Phase, there will be two unselected Strategy Cards. A Bonus counter will be added to each card as incentive for selection in future rounds. When a player selects a Strategy Card with a Bonus counter, they immediately exchange each counter for either a Trade Good or Command Counter.

Action Phase

Starting with the player with the lowest-numbered Strategy Card and moving up in number, players take actions sequentially until all players have passed. There are four different types of actions that players can perform: the Strategic Action, Tactical Action, Transfer Action, and using Action Cards that are played as actions. Details about the first three actions are contained in the following sections. The fourth is straightforward: the acting player declares the card they wish to play. For expediency in the forum game environment, players do not need to declare use of the Action Card, wait for others to declare, and then actually play the card. (Please note that the two-step declare-then-play protocol still applies for other phases of the game, including the Strategy Phase, Status Phase, and battles.)

If a player does not wish to make any more actions during the round, they may pass their turn. Players must use the Strategic Action specified on their Strategy Card before ending their turn for the round. Players who have passed their turn will still be able to participate in secondary abilities from other players’ Strategic Actions, but take no further actions in the Action Phase. Players may pass their turn.

Custom/optional rules

Sabotage Runs optional rule will be used.

Gen. Synthesis tech revival for Ground Force units will only be done at the end of invasions.

Posts

At the start of the game, Mecatol Rex is assigned two Custodians of Mecatol Rex tokens. Before any player may establish control over the planet, they must defeat a standing force of 3 Fighters and 2 Ground Forces. The Fighters are immune to Anti-Fighter Barrage, the Ground Forces immune to Bombardment. Each token returns to full strength if not defeated, but when beaten they are permanently removed from the game, even if control over Mecatol Rex is later lost.

As described above, Command Counters in the Strategy Allocation area are (generally) used to play the secondary abilities of Strategy Cards, and counters in the Command Pool area are used to activate systems in Tactical and Transfer actions. Command Counters in the Fleet Supply area are not spent, but instead indicate the maximum number of friendly non-Fighter ships that can be supported in a single system at any time. Each player has a maximum of 16 Command Counters available in the game. If a game effect requires the placement of a Counter from the reserves and none is available, the counter must be taken from one of the allocated areas.

Keep in mind that removing all Ground units from a world after establishing control does not relinquish it. Only when an enemy takes over control does ownership transfer.

Certain map hexes have special features. Hexes with matching-lettered wormholes are considered adjacent by movement. Asteroid Field systems are impassable unless a player has the Antimass Deflectors technology; even then, movement may not end in this system. Supernova systems are completely impassable to movement. Nebula systems can be activated, but units may not move through them in a single activation. Ships defend with a +1 bonus to combat rolls while inside a Nebula, but their movement is reduced to 1 when moving out of a Nebula system. Ion Storms, much like Nebulas, can be activated, but cannot be passed through without stopping. While inside an Ion Storm, ships may not be fired upon by PDS Units, and Fighters do not fire in combat (though they still may be taken as casualties). Gravity Rifts have a chance of destroying any ship that leaves or moves through the system: for each ship a die is rolled and on a 1-5, the ship and any carried units are destroyed.

With the additional components from the expansions, the Trade Good pool is effectively unlimited (88 in total). Trade Goods may be spent at any time as 1 resource or 1 influence, except in voting. Trade Goods are also notable for normally being the only component that may be freely traded between players. Transfers may be performed at any time; these are good bargaining chips when making negotiations.

Trade Contracts may be broken unilaterally by a player in the Status Phase if they desire. Contracts are also automatically broken if trade partners engage in a Space Battle or Invasion Combat.

When playing an Action Card outside of simply as an action, a player must first declare that they are making an Action Card play, after which all other players may also declare a play, or pass. If multiple players wish to play cards at the same time, resolution is in play order (which differs in the Strategy Phase, Action Phase, and Status Phase). The exception to Action Card declaration is the play of "Sabotage" cards: these do not need to be declared until they are played reactively to another Action Card being played.

The maximum hand size for Action Cards is seven. If a player exceeds this number at any time, they must immediately discard down to seven, even if they have more Action Cards to draw. In the latter case, the player may continue drawing cards after discarding down to seven.

Hello! This game has been setup to allow the overflow from Game 6 to have a chance at playing. This is my first time hosting this game, so we'll be sticking to basic first expansion rules to keep things simpler for everyone. No optional rules (such as distant suns and leaders) will be used (exception: sabotage runs, because they're awesome).

Special thanks to Mr Blarney for the template and resource links. For most of the visuals I'm going to try and use Vassal. To speed things along, I will be handling all die rolls.

Signups will go until we have 6 players. Priority will be given to the people who didn't get in to game 6, but any open spots after that can go to anyone else interested.

Some general advice to new players, veterans chime in if I forget anything...

-Be very careful of wormholes, especially if it gives a warlike race access to you.

-Remember that you cannot move units out of a system you have activated that turn.

-The goal is to get victory points, not have the biggest fleet or conquer (though that can help). Do whatever you think is best for pursuing the current victory objectives.

-When it comes to ships, the most important aspect is build capacity (how many units a dock can build in one turn) since the cheaper ships (fighters, destroyers, somewhat cruisers) are more cost effective. Warsuns are outstanding ships in every category but require a lot of tech. Dreadnauts are usually only worth it if you have a ton of resources but low fleet supply or build capacity and can't make warsuns.

-Having a transport ship (one that can carry ground forces) with 2 movement speed is hugely important. This makes XRD drives or stasis capsule techs hugely important (XRD is generally better than capsules, but capsules has more useful tech leading to it).

-The best techs are usually XRD drives, enviro compensators, hylar laser, and war suns. Continuing to tech into other stuff may pay off depending on the situation but keep in mind not to get carried away with teching. Just because a tech is late in the tree doesn't make it better. Especially misleading is all the techs benefiting dreadnauts; you're probably better off just teching to warsuns. Lightwave Reflectors are a killer tech but they're so far down in the tree that hardly anyone can get them before the game is over.

-Resources are almost always better than influence. A lot of the political votes don't have much of an impact so your vote count isn't terribly important. Influence is mostly used for buying Command Counters off of the Leadership strategy card. Try to build extra space docks on the highest resource planets so you'll get a high build capacity.

-Action cards are AWESOME! Be very wary of going to war with someone who holds a lot. If you do, plan on him having at least one card that will give him a significant advantage in combat. If you get a sabotage card, save it for when an action card is truly going to screw you over. In particular, keep in mind the existence of the cards Local Unrest (pick an enemy planet, if there is a ground force, eliminate one. If there are no ground forces after that, the planet revert to neutral and any space dock is destroyed) and Flank Speed (+1 movement for all ships in a fleet).

-For this game I'm going to be leaving out 2 races: Yssaril Tribes and Yin. The former is broken powerful and the latter is broken weak.

Don't worry about posting moves in any sort of official format. All I ask is to try and post them in your assigned race color. To keep things simple, only use your color when posting official moves. Use plain text for all conversation.

Trade treaties: 2,1
Racial tech 1: Valkyrie Armor (cost +3 resources) - At the end of a round of invasion combat, roll one dir for each casualty you take. For each 10 you roll, your opponent must immediately take one additional casualty.
Racial tech 2: Exotrireme (cost +4 resources) - At the end of a round of space battle, you may destroy 1 of your dreadnauts present to destroy 2 present enemy ships of your choice.

Xxcha (shifty diplomats)

Trade treaties: 2,2
Racial tech 1: Diplomats (cost +5 resources) - Once per turn, when an opponent activates a system you control, you may spend a Command Counter from your strategy allocation area to force him to instead place the command counter into his reinforcements and immediately end his action.
Racial tech 2: Instinct Training (cost +4 resources) - Once per game turn, you may spend 1 Command Counter from your Strategy Allocation area to cancel an action card just played by an opponent.

Muaat (prototype Warsun rushers)

Trade treaties: 2,2
Racial tech 1: Magmus Reactor (cost +5 resources) - Your war suns now have +1 movement and and a base cost of 10 resources.
Racial tech 2: Nova Seed (cost +3 resources) - As an action, you may remove this card from the game to replace a system you control with a supernova system tile. This may not be used on Mecatol Rex, a home system, or adjacent to a red bordered system.

Trade treaties: 3,3
Racial tech 1: Production centers (cost +3 resources) - As an action, you may spend a command counter from your strategic allocation area to gain 6 trade goods. You must then give 2 of your trade goods to one other player. You may only do this once per turn, and only if you have fewer than 6 trade goods.
Racial tech 2: Quantum Datahub Node (cost +5 resources) - At the end of the status phase, you may trade one of your strategy cards with a strategy card belonging to one of your trade partners. The other player does not need to agree to this trade.

I'll allow anyone to hand in their race and get dealt another, but you must accept the 2nd race (which could be race someone has traded in).

Muaat won the last game. 3 movement speed warsuns is nothing to sneeze at.

Yeah, I get that they're pretty strong. My preference first time out is a generalist, is all; since executing on getting those badass warsuns seems key to Muaat, they ain't that. Let me think about the redraw offer for a bit.

[*]At the start of the game, Mecatol Rex is assigned two Custodians of Mecatol Rex tokens. Before any player may establish control over the planet, they must defeat a standing force of 3 Fighters and 2 Ground Forces. The Fighters are immune to Anti-Fighter Barrage, the Ground Forces immune to Bombardment. Each token returns to full strength if not defeated, but when beaten they are permanently removed from the game, even if control over Mecatol Rex is later lost.

One thing I can say about Muaat is that unless you're swimming command counters then it's generally not worth it to trade one for 2 fighters or a destroyer. The value is more in the delaying action ("punting" your turn to make your opponents commit use up all their valid moves first) than the ship it gives you, but it's still expensive giving up a CC for.

Their early game is about striking a balance between leveraging their early advantage with a starting warsun, and being extra careful not to lose it.

I'm just not a fan of them in general. Way too random in screwing over or benefiting certain players early on. I'd rather a competitive game be about fighting other players than fighting the board.

Fair enough. There's the less-random variant that's less of a swingfest, but I see your point. I won my first-ever RL game by finding a free starbase on a 4r world next to Mecatol so... yeah, the randomness can be significant.